Capital punishment in Somalia

For broader coverage of this topic, see Capital punishment and Capital punishment in Africa.

Capital punishment is a legal criminal penalty in Somalia, a nation in East Africa. Legally sanctioned executions of the death penalty in Somalia are carried out by shooting, in accordance with the 1962 Somali Penal Code and the Military Penal Code. Sharia and Islamic tribunals are recognised in Somalia in parallel with the civil law: these would have the authority to order execution by other means, such as beheading and stoning. Since at least the start of the 21st century, all executions by such methods have been applied ad-hoc, without official sanction, by non-state insurgent militias, in the context of an unstable government, and the ongoing civil war in the country. A number of these extrajudicial executions have violated sharia legal principles and appear to have a conflict-related tactical aim of inciting fear amongst civilians.[1] Both officially sanctioned and extrajudicial executions by firing squad often occur in public.[2][3]

  1. ^ Reported by the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide:
    • "Country reports — Somalia", Death Penalty Worldwide Database, Cornell Law School, 24 December 2019 [Updated May 2023], archived from the original on 30 June 2023, retrieved 6 August 2023
    • "Country reports — Somalia", Death Penalty Worldwide Database, Cornell Law School, 12 June 2019 [Updated], archived from the original on 17 June 2019
    • "The Death Penalty in Somalia", Death Penalty Worldwide Database, Cornell Law School, August 2014 [Updated], archived from the original on 30 October 2014, retrieved 2 January 2018
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  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference dpw 2023 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).